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BONUS: Suspect On The Run in Murder Of Mother Found Shot Near Cemetery With Two Young ‘Terrified’ Children · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

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  Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories with
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  Speaker 1: Nancy Grace. I'm executive producer Jackie Howard. Police now have
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  Speaker 1: a suspect in the shooting death of twenty seventy year
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  Speaker 1: old Joanna Pica. She was shot in the face while
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  Speaker 1: holding her four month old baby, and also her four
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  Speaker 1: year old was in the back seat at the time.
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  Speaker 1: This suspect is now on the run. Police are offering
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  Speaker 1: a twenty thousand dollars reward. Joining me now is Joe
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  Speaker 1: scob Morgan, Professor Forensics at Jacksonville State University. He is
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  Speaker 1: also author of Blood Beneath My Feet. Joe, There's a
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  Speaker 1: lot to talk about in this case. Let's talk first
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  Speaker 1: about the fact that this woman was shot multiple times
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  Speaker 1: in the face. You know, when they found miss Pica,
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  Speaker 1: she was actually in the front seat of her vehicle,
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  Speaker 1: actually in the driver's side of the vehicle, seated there,
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  Speaker 1: and according to the police, when they arrived at the scene,
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  Speaker 1: they were unable to detect that she was actually holding
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  Speaker 1: a four month old baby, still clutching this baby in
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  Speaker 1: her arms. Now, they didn't go into graphic detail, but
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  Speaker 1: I can tell you from my experience that more than
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  Speaker 1: likely this was as a result of just the tremendous
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  Speaker 1: amount of blood that had literally poured down onto this
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  Speaker 1: little baby and onto the baby's clothing, the mother's clothing.
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  Speaker 1: So essentially the baby was camouflaged in blood. Now, in
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  Speaker 1: this environment, everybody can envision what a tight space in
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  Speaker 1: the front seat of a car is, or just in
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  Speaker 1: a car in general. It's a tight, confined space that
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  Speaker 1: maybe you know, they're in Florida, it's summertime, maybe the
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  Speaker 1: air is running, so the windows are up. People can
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  Speaker 1: understand this. It's very confining and so can you imagine
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  Speaker 1: within that space, someone seated in the front seat passenger seat,
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  Speaker 1: takes a weapon out and points this weapon and we
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  Speaker 1: can only assume probably within about eighteen to maybe twenty
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  Speaker 1: inches at the furthest distance away from the target and
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  Speaker 1: then pulls the trigger over and over and over and
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  Speaker 1: over again. The report or the sound, the echo would
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  Speaker 1: have been tremendous within the car. And it wasn't just
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  Speaker 1: the four month old baby that hurt this There was
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  Speaker 1: a four year old seated in the back seat of
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  Speaker 1: the vehicle as well. This was his mother in the
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  Speaker 1: front seat. Now, the four month old might not have
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  Speaker 1: memories of this, but let me tell you something, at
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  Speaker 1: four year old than the backseat, this will haunt him
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  Speaker 1: more than likely until the day he dies. The suspect
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  Speaker 1: in this case, Joe Benjamin Baby Williams is thirty eight,
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  Speaker 1: is the father of the four month old. So that
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  Speaker 1: in itself makes you wonder how someone could do this.
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  Speaker 1: So you were talking about the distance in the car.
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  Speaker 1: We're assuming that he was also inside the car. We
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  Speaker 1: don't know this yet, but given that if we believe
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  Speaker 1: he might have been in the car when this happened,
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  Speaker 1: more than likely he's covered with blood as well. In
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  Speaker 1: this particular case, the perpetrator would have been literally showered
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  Speaker 1: with blood. In this environment, his extended arm the weapon
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  Speaker 1: and let's just say, for instance, he wasn't inside of
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  Speaker 1: the vehicle. If he was just standing outside of the
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  Speaker 1: vehicle and say stuck the weapon inside the window to
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  Speaker 1: fire at this poor young mother at point blank range
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  Speaker 1: in the face, his hands and the weapon again are
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  Speaker 1: still going to be covered in blood. And in addition
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  Speaker 1: to that, the ceiling, the liner inside of the vehicle,
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  Speaker 1: also the back of the seat will be covered in
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  Speaker 1: blood as well. And what's so important about this and
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  Speaker 1: understanding kind of the nature of this blood staining. You know,
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  Speaker 1: from a forensics perspective, when we begin to examine blood
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  Speaker 1: stained patterns, one of the things that we look at
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  Speaker 1: is we try to judge velocity, and so folks understand,
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  Speaker 1: if it's low velocity, that's something that could be generated
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  Speaker 1: maybe perhaps with the punch to the face and you
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  Speaker 1: have a bloody nose and blood is going to be
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  Speaker 1: kind of large droplets that will be scattered everywhere. Then
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  Speaker 1: you have medium velocity, which if folks at home will
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  Speaker 1: think if someone was struck with a hammer or baseball bat,
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  Speaker 1: the droplets would be smaller because the velocity would increase.
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  Speaker 1: But when it comes to a firearm, that's what we recall.
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  Speaker 1: That's what we call high velocity blood staining. And the
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  Speaker 1: significance of that is did he punch her beforehand, did
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  Speaker 1: he slap her around, or was this just a straight
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  Speaker 1: up shooting. If there is high velocity blood droplets within
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  Speaker 1: this environment, will know just by virtue of the way
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  Speaker 1: this interior the car is assessed that that was generated
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  Speaker 1: from the high muscle velocity of this weapon as those
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  Speaker 1: rounds slammed over and over and over again into their target,
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  Speaker 1: which obviously was this poor woman's face. One thing we
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  Speaker 1: do know, though, Joe, considering that she was shot multiple
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  Speaker 1: times in the face, we will really never know whether
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  Speaker 1: or not she was beaten because these injuries are so
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  Speaker 1: markedly catastrophic. And what I mean by that is that
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  Speaker 1: when a high velocity round slams into tissue and bone,
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  Speaker 1: it's very, very disruptive. So if say, for instance, she
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  Speaker 1: had been punched beforehand, or struck with something else, it
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  Speaker 1: would be very difficult to make a determination or delineate
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  Speaker 1: between these two. That really the only saving grace here
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  Speaker 1: is going to be the nature of the velocity of
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  Speaker 1: the blood spatter itself. And you know, it's really hard
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  Speaker 1: to discuss or understand what the dynamic of this event
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  Speaker 1: was that led to her death. All we know is
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  Speaker 1: that per the victim's mother. The mother stated that Joanna
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  Speaker 1: had agreed to meet the alleged perpetrator at a cemetery
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  Speaker 1: of all things, at night where his sister was buried,
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  Speaker 1: and the mother had gone on to say, well, you know,
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  Speaker 1: she really the victim, really cared for the perpetrator, that
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  Speaker 1: she had had a child with him, and that he
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  Speaker 1: just wanted to go there, and you know, she implied
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  Speaker 1: just to be comforted, And so this poor young woman
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  Speaker 1: agreed to go to a cemetery at night with these
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  Speaker 1: small children in transit out there and to sit there
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  Speaker 1: in the middle of the graveyard in the middle of
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  Speaker 1: the night and have a talk with him, time stories
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  Speaker 1: with Nancy, Grace Joe. One of the things we found
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  Speaker 1: out from the police is that this person Williams, is
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  Speaker 1: a suspect in other murders. How will they be able
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  Speaker 1: to connect all this? You know, what's really fascinating is
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  Speaker 1: that this person who allegedly shot Joanna was intimately involved
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  Speaker 1: with her, but there's an indication that he might be
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  Speaker 1: tied or linked to multiple other homicides in the Florida area,
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  Speaker 1: in the Tampa area. And so when you begin to
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  Speaker 1: think about that, you think, well, this guy's out on
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  Speaker 1: the run, he's armed. Well, you know, it's kind of
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  Speaker 1: like a carpenter, and a carpenter chooses to use a hammer.
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  Speaker 1: Many times, people that are involved in multiple homicide events
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  Speaker 1: they choose to use the same tool as well, and
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  Speaker 1: that's the same weapon. It's something that they're familiar with,
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  Speaker 1: it's something they get a level of comfort with. So
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  Speaker 1: from a forensic standpoint when we're discussing ballistic evidence. Let's say,
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  Speaker 1: for instance, they take projectiles that are recovered at this
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  Speaker 1: scene where they know he was and possibly was with
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  Speaker 1: this same weapon. They can retrieve those spent rounds, those
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  Speaker 1: projectiles that pass through this poor woman's body, probably lodged
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  Speaker 1: within the vehicle or within her body maybe in a
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  Speaker 1: couple of cases, and pair those up or match those
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  Speaker 1: up with these other suspective homicides, and that is a
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  Speaker 1: huge bit of physical evidence. This is what we call
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  Speaker 1: linkage in forensic science, or connectivity, where you can kind
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  Speaker 1: of draw a line that connects all of these seemingly
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  Speaker 1: maybe before random events or maybe things that police just
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  Speaker 1: kind of suspected, but now you've got hard, hard evidence.
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  Speaker 1: Here is just really a shame that this young lady
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  Speaker 1: had to lose her life. So what about the shell casings, Joe.
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  Speaker 1: If we make the assumption that he was using a
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  Speaker 1: semi automatic weapon, which by and large most people carry
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  Speaker 1: now that carry weapons, as opposed to revolvers that have
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  Speaker 1: all of the rounds on a little cylinder, these shell casings,
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  Speaker 1: as they're fired, they are ejected. Well, if you're contained
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  Speaker 1: within a confined space, guess what, those rounds are not
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  Speaker 1: going to go bounding out all in the grass or
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  Speaker 1: down the pavement. They're going to be contained within the
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  Speaker 1: cockpit of that vehicle. So when they go to recover,
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  Speaker 1: not you remember I talked about the projectiles that had
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  Speaker 1: passed through her body and maybe lodged in the seed
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  Speaker 1: or in the door panels. Not only are they going
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  Speaker 1: to have that bit of ballistic evidence, you're going to
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  Speaker 1: have the shell casings that well, you're going to have
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  Speaker 1: the shell casings as well. And many times these shell
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  Speaker 1: casings are made out of very soft metal, much of
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  Speaker 1: the time brass. And what happens with this is that
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  Speaker 1: there are with semi automatic weapons, you'll see these little
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  Speaker 1: strided marks on the sides of the casing itself, and
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  Speaker 1: those are actually ejection marks where the ejector this automatic
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  Speaker 1: semi automatic process draws the spin casing out and cast
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  Speaker 1: it aside. Well, that metal is so soft that there
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  Speaker 1: are very distinctive marks that are made on the sides
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  Speaker 1: of it and on the base of it. And guess what,
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  Speaker 1: just like the bullet itself that's fired can be passed,
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  Speaker 1: can be connected to a weapon because of the rifling marks,
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  Speaker 1: those striations on that soft brass. They can be matched
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  Speaker 1: up as well. And again this goes to these other
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  Speaker 1: suspected homicides that this person might be involved in if
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  Speaker 1: they recovered those shell cases from those scenes as well.
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  Speaker 1: From a forensic standpoint, this could be a slam dunk Joe.
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  Speaker 1: One thing that really strikes me about the horrendous nature
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  Speaker 1: of this crime. The shooting is bad enough, but to
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  Speaker 1: shoot the person who is holding your child and is
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  Speaker 1: the mother of your child. I know you're not a
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  Speaker 1: forensic psychologist. I get this, but the idea of that
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  Speaker 1: is just really difficult to grasp. Even the mother of
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  Speaker 1: Joanna Pica said he's not human. I had kind of
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  Speaker 1: a difficult time wrapping my head around this idea of
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  Speaker 1: of an individual that would execute a young mother, and
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  Speaker 1: not just any young mother, the mother of his child,
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  Speaker 1: and in front of another child. It really gives you pause,
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  Speaker 1: doesn't it. Why is it that you know I'm looking
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  Speaker 1: at this through the lens of an investigator, not so
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  Speaker 1: much as from the perspective of a forensic psychologist, which
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  Speaker 1: I'm not. If I were an investigator in this case,
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  Speaker 1: I'd be thinking, why do you leave the kids alive?
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  Speaker 1: What is it within you that compels you to shoot
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  Speaker 1: the mother and then not shoot the children. And I
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  Speaker 1: think that we can draw some conclusions here. To shoot
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  Speaker 1: somebody in the face or to really disfigure them gives
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  Speaker 1: you an indication of anything but mercy. Okay, disfigurement that
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  Speaker 1: sort of thing. You're sending a message like you hate
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  Speaker 1: that person. If he had taken this woman, put her
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  Speaker 1: on her knees, have her lean forward, and shot her
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  Speaker 1: execution style in that, we could draw another conclusion. But
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  Speaker 1: you know, at the moment she died, the last thing
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  Speaker 1: she probably saw was the muzzle flash from that weapon
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  Speaker 1: illuminating the interior of the car, flashing back in her
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  Speaker 1: eyes like a brilliant flashbulb. And then that was the
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  Speaker 1: end of her life. And I really think that it
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  Speaker 1: goes to the pathology of this guy, what's going on
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  Speaker 1: in his praying. I can say this, he's dangerous and
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  Speaker 1: he needs to be caught and brought into justice as
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  Speaker 1: soon as possible before more people are killed. The Saint
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  Speaker 1: Pete Police Department agrees with you, this guy is dangerous.
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  Speaker 1: Benjamin Robert Williams, thirty eight, is considered armed and extremely dangerous.
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  Speaker 1: He is five feet eight weighs one hundred and thirty
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  Speaker 1: five pounds. His nickname Manby. There is a twenty thousand
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  Speaker 1: dollars reward available for his arrest. If you have any
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  Speaker 1: information on Benjamin william S Wuereamounts, please call one eight
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  Speaker 1: seven seven wanted two again. That's one eight seven seven
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  Speaker 1: nine six eight three three two. This is Crime Stories
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  Speaker 1: with Nancy Grace. I'm Jackie Howard.